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OMAN
: Not Enough Jobs for the Young
Nationals

When
Sultan Qabus came to power in 1970, there were
only three schools in Oman. Today, there are
270.000 children in school and 1.140 students
attend the university which was inaugurated
in 1986. Expansion of education is regarded
as one of the most important achievements of
the modernisation programme launched under Qabus,
but it is also creating its own problems.

Every year, nearly 4.000 students leave secondary
schools and the first batch of university graduates
will come onto the employment market this year.
The difficulty is absorbing all of them into
an an economy where growth is sluggish
because of the austerity measures forcedd on
the government by stagnant oil revenues. (Oil
income was just under $3bn in 1987 and is estimated
at little more last year).

“The problem of the new generation is
our greatest challenge”, said an Omani
official closely associated with the government’s
economomic and social policies. “Until
now we have provided all graduates with a job,
but the government -- which is by far the largest
single employer -- just doen’t have the
financial resources to hire more people”.

“Omanisation” has been a much-used
slogan for several years, but now the government
realises it must act quickly if it is to avoid
trouble in the future. A special committee chaired
by Seyed Fahd bin Mahmoud, the deputy premier
for legal affairs, has been set up to tackle
the problem with representatives from the ministries
of education, finance and the civil service.

One big obstacle is that almost all Omani graduates
want to work for the government. Salaries are
generally higher than in the private sector,
working hours are shorter and job security is
greater. But the public sector is already approaching
saturation with 72.000
employees, some 11.000 of them working for the
Royal Diwan. “This is a large figure for
a total population of about one and a half million”,
says Ahmed Makki, the civil service minister.
“From now on the only possibility for
an Omani is to take over from one of the 23.000
foreigners in the civil service”.

Over the past two years, the government has
been training Omanis who want to join the civil
service, paying them a salary while they sit
next to an expatriate employee and learn the
job. As soon as the expatriate’s contract
is up, the Omani national takes over.

But most of the foreigners have technical positions,
and it takes time to train technicians and specialists.
Meanwhile, the government is paying out two
salaries for one job. The two ministries who
employ by far the largest number of foreigners
are education and health. More than 8.000 Egyptians,
over 1.000 Sudanese and a little less than 1.000
Jordanians are teaching in Oman. The Health
Minuistry employs an estimated 2.000 Indians,
1.300 Filipinos and 500 Pakistanis. Ahmed Makki
is working on a plan for the Omanisation of
the two ministries, but no deadline has been
set because of the difficulty of training large
numbers of teachers and nurses.

To
help them find a job, the government has set
up a one-year crash programme to train graduates
in subjects such as litterature and psychology
to become teachers in secondary schools. But
the government is determined that students who
take courses which do not fit them for for employment
must face the consequences. “We need technicians
and scientists”, says Ahmed Makki. “Oman
cannot afford the luxury of letting people study
useless subjects”. More than half the
students at the university are in courses like
litterature and Islamic studies, but the government
is already carefully selecting which students
it is sending abroad for further education.

The private sector, which employs about a quarter
of a million foreigners, has potentially a much
larger capacity to absorb Omani nationals. This
will be a long and costly process, however,
and the government does not want to pursue it
over-vigorously and thereby risk frightening
away foreign investors.

Omanis are also understandably reluctant to
accept the lower salaries paid to Indians and
Pakistanis. Ahmed Makki is studying a proposal
whereby such salaries could be increased by
adding on the cost of paying for immigrants’
housing, airline tickets and medical treatment.
Businessmen have also told the government that
it would be easier to attract Omanis if government
pay rates were lowered (as has happened for
new recruits in the UAE). So far, the authorities
have shied away from this potentially provocative
solution.

Another obstacle is persuading Omanis to take
relatively low-grade jobs. The civil service
minister is convinced that economic necessity
will change people’s minds. “In
the past, when I offered a job for a typist,
only primary or preparatory school graduates
showed up. But now secondary school graduates
are applying, because they haven’t got
a choice”. He draws a comparison with
the past. “What forced Omanis to go abroad
in search of work during the time of Sultan
Qabus’ father? Necessity! And necessity
will also force Omanis to take jobs here that
maybe they don’t like”.

Ahmed Makki does not think this will create
political problems. “Our young people
have not yet reached that level of dissatisfaction.
There is a lot of work in Oman, and the younger
generation cannot claim that we aren’t
doing anything for them. They are on the top
of the agenda”. He added that the government
was thinking of producing a five-year plan for
human resources. “It could mean we have
to review our whole system of education”.